Like Clockwork
by Misaia
Summary: In theory, what should happen is that the guy gets the girl (or the other guy, or the promotion, or the whatever), and he and his family settle into a nice house in the suburbs with 2.5 children, a dog, and a happy ending waiting for them just around the corner. But fairy tales don't translate into real life. Not too well, anyway.
1. Promise Me You'll Always Remember

_The first thing that assaults his senses is the smell of rust. _

_It is cloying and heavy in the air, and he forces his eyes open into strong industrial fluorescent lights that hum and buzz directly in the space between his thoughts and fills his head with static sound. _

_"Mr. Barnes," is the first thing he hears, the voice disinterested, bored, dryly clinical, and he forces his gaze over to his left to look at a man in a white coat, his face half-covered with a peppermint green surgical mask that Bucky immediately associates with hospitals and sick and sadness. The other half of his face sports a pair of large, wire-rimmed glasses, and Bucky wants to tell him to take them off, the fluorescent lights are reflecting off them in a sharp glare and are hurting his eyes, but his tongue is seemingly glued to the roof of his mouth and his words get all tangled in his chest, a garbled mess of syllables and consonants that make sense to nobody but himself. _

_"Subject 882 appears to be awake," the scientist says, turning and speaking to a tape recorder he's set on a steel instrument table by Bucky's head. "Consciousness remains to be determined." _

_The scientist approaches with a penlight held firmly in his hand, and Bucky stares at him, frozen, as the man pokes and prods at him, shining the light directly into his pupils and measuring their reaction, sending shattering light into his head and piercing pain through his mind. _

_"Pupils appear normal, responding to light, contracting as expected. Irises dark brown, flecks of green and gold speckling the exterior rim. However, pupils do not follow relative motion and cannot track moving objects. Subject appears to be unresponsive to new stimuli." _

_The scientist fiddles around on his instrument tray, making steel clash against steel and setting Bucky's teeth to gritting something fierce. _

_He disappears from view for a moment, and Bucky gets no warning, visual or verbal, before a sharp pain suddenly lances up his left arm. He screams, but all that comes out is a tiny whistle of air. _

_The scientist peers down at him. "Subject appears to be unreactive to pain," he states precisely, before lifting up what Bucky can only describe as an instrument of pure torture and bringing it down. _

* * *

_The first thing he sees is a video of a man, strong, tall, blonde and handsome, decked out in red, white, and blue regalia, a shield emblazoned with a star in its centre hanging at his side. _

_There is a name on the tip of his tongue, it starts with an S - Sam? Spencer? Sawyer? - that contains the meaning of the universe, but for the life of him he can't seem to get it to stick. _

_"This is the man you have to kill," the scientist's voice says, and Bucky's gaze drifts over to the left, where the surgeon is standing, dressed in a dark suit. He looks so much different from how Bucky imagined he would look: those blue-green eyes with crow's feet at the corners look like they could be kind, those hands nervously fiddling with each other in front of him look like they have probably held a child's, his mouth, nervous and thin, looks equally used to telling a desperate student that yes, he's got the job, and telling an unemployed single mother that no, the bank cannot give her a second mortgage, not even if it means she won't have money for her baby's formula. _

_Bucky shakes his head vehemently. He can't kill the man with the answers to the universe, he just can't, why can't the scientist understand that -_

_"I know it hurts," the man says, coming closer, his voice soothing and low, his posture cautious, as though he is approaching a rabid dog that might bite at any moment. "I know it hurts," he murmurs, "but you know how to make it stop hurting, don't you now?"_

_Bucky shakes his head, this time slightly reluctant. He can't do this. The blonde man on the video screen is looking straight at him now, and Bucky feels himself getting lost in the ocean of his eyes. _

_The scientist fills his frame of view, cradling his face in his hands like a lover. _

_"I know you can do this," he says, and because his arm is hurting something fierce and his chest hurts something fiercer, Bucky just hangs his head and whispers that he will. _

* * *

The first thing that he tastes when he wakes up for the second time is the taste of his breath, fuzzy in his mouth, stale. He wrinkles his nose in distaste and rolls over to find himself face to face with that beautiful blonde man from the video staring right back at him.

"Hey, Bucks, sleep well?" he asks, a dimple appearing at the corner of his cheek as he leans over and kisses him full on the mouth, morning breath and all.

The second thing he tastes is mint, from Steve - oh that is his name -'s toothpaste, and he cannot help but smile back.

"What is it?" Steve asks, pulling back and tilting his head to look at him. "You've got that look in your eye, the one you get when you're thinking really hard about something. Penny for your thoughts?"

"I think mine are at least worth a quarter," he says, and the gruffness of his voice surprises himself. "You know. Inflation and all that."

Steve laughs, and Bucky thinks that perhaps the universe is aligning itself in his voice.

* * *

_The last thing he remembers touching is Steve's face, tracing the contours of his lips and his cheekbones while he was fast asleep. _

_Steve. _

_He rolls the name around in his mouth and wonders how he ended up here again. _

_The surgeon comes back around, taking his chin in hand and raising his head to look at him. He tuts. "Perhaps I was not quite clear enough the first time," he says. "You need to kill that man. According to news reports, Captain America is still running around, cape and all, saving lives."_

_He doesn't have a cape, Bucky wants to say, but there is something that tastes of metal and correction fluid in his mouth and he cannot make any sounds past it. _

_When he doesn't respond - how is he supposed to respond? - the surgeon sighs again and goes back to rummaging through his instrument tray. _

_He whistles something to himself as he presses a few buttons and Bucky finds himself tilting backward, backward, backward, until he is facing the fluorescent lights again. He squints, trying to block out the bright white, but the surgeon's face fills his frame of view, and Bucky watches with horror as the man holds up a giant, jagged saw. _

_"It appears another lesson is in order, yes?" the surgeon asks, and Bucky struggles in his restraints but can't seem to pull free - "Perhaps you would like to watch this time? It's something of my own invention," and the surgeon's eyes crinkle at the corners, almost kindly, as he holds up a shiny brass lump of metal. "I've always wanted to do a transplant on someone, and who better than you? The serum will protect you; after all, you're practically invincible." _

_Then why does it hurt so much? Bucky wants to ask. The surgeon appears to read his thoughts, because he sets down the metal - cold cold cold - against Bucky's bare chest, and smiles kindly upside-down at him. "Well, I never said it wouldn't hurt," he says, as though he is explaining a punchline. "I just said it couldn't kill you." _

_And then he is screaming, it hurts it hurts it hurts and the tang of pennies is sharp in the air as the saw grinds and shrieks against the groaning of his ribs, and he whispers Steve's name, a sob a cry a prayer, forces the syllables past the bite of copper in his mouth, and waits to wake up again. _


	2. You're Braver Than You Believe

_**A/N: For this particular storyline, Steve lives mainly in the Avengers Tower, which is where they are at the moment.**_

"Hey, sleepyhead, it's way past morning, time to get up!" An elbow digs into his ribs, and Bucky catches his breath deep in his chest, forcing his eyes open and squinting in preparation for the fluorescent lights he fully expects to see overhead. It is nothing short of surprising to find himself staring up into the sea of Steve's eyes, and he sits up quickly, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands, praying that when he takes his hands away that Steve will still be there.

"You still sleep like the dead, you know that?" Steve asks, smiling at him, but Bucky can see his hands pleating the edges of the dark blue satin coverlet on the bed. Nervous. "Although I guess I can't really fault you, Tony says I've been asleep for like seventy years or something like that. So I'm practically geriatric."

Bucky takes a few moments to gaze around the room. The bed he's currently sitting in is huge, could probably fit a family of five and still have room to spare, and the silky sheets are impossibly smooth against his skin. Sunlight gleams off the honey hardwood flooring, floors that look so clean Bucky thinks one could probably eat off it. The far wall is a bank of glossy windows, outside the impossibly blue sky studded with softly skidding clouds that look exactly like cotton candy should, and in the distance the deep, deep blue of the sea.

He looks up as the mattress shifts, follows the strong line of Steve's back as he walks over to the cherry wood dresser on the other wall of the room, sandwiched in between two doors, a flat screen television balanced neatly on top. A red, blue, and white shield, a star emblazoned in the centre, leans against the dresser's side, and Bucky winces, burying his head in his hands and taking deep, huffing breaths, trying to dispel the sudden jagged shot of pain that racks through his brain. _This is all wrong, _a voice in his head whispers, deep and terrifying, and suddenly the sheets around him, beneath him, feel like they're burning, and he scrambles quickly out of them, getting his limbs tangled in the blanket and no no _no I'm drowning I'm going to die tick tock your time is running out_

"You okay?" Strong hands wrap around his waist, carefully extricating him from the covers. "I didn't like them the first time, either. But Tony's like a multibillionaire or something, and he said it was shameful to just be sleeping on cotton sheets all the time. Made him feel like he couldn't provide for us or anything, even though the entire tower's basically his."

Bucky looks up, meets Steve's eye, and feels the racing in his heart slow, slow, slow, the pulse in the base of his throat dropping down a few notches as Steve's thumb strokes carefully, cautiously along the base of his spine, and for just a few moments he can pretend that that shield doesn't exist, that this is really what it looks like.

"Speaking of Tony, he wants to look at your arm," Steve says conversationally, and Bucky wonders if the skin in the hollow of Steve's throat is as soft as it looks. He wonders if he already knows. "I mean, if that's okay with you, it IS your arm after all."

Bucky opens his mouth, is about to ask Steve which arm Tony wants to look at, but Steve's gaze is drifting towards his left shoulder, and though he's pretty sure he's wearing a pair of shorts, Bucky feels undeniably naked as Steve's blue eyes scrutinise the metal planes and bolts and scales, tracing the curves of his arm, the lines of his hand, the joints of his fingers. After what feels like an eternity, Steve clears his throat, returns to look at him, and tilts his head back to meet Bucky's stare with a smile that is undeniably sad.

"Well," Steve says after a moment, pushing a neatly folded pile of clothes at him. "I guess you've always been a bit taller than me, but these should still fit. I think. Maybe if they don't, we can go shopping later..." Steve lets his voice trail off, and Bucky desperately wants to promise him that he'll stay this time, that he's not going to go anywhere, that he'll always be here to wear T-shirts and jeans and the button-downs and V-necks, that they won't be left hanging in the empty left half of Steve's closet waiting for a body to fill them.

"And maybe you'll want to shave, I don't know if you want to keep...this," Steve says, placing his hands against his cheeks. "I mean, you wear that mask all the time, so maybe it doesn't matter -"

"Are you scared of me?"

The question catches both of them by surprise. Steve stares at him, his gaze unguarded, his mouth slightly open, and Bucky can't help but be reminded of that time, all decked out in sergeant's militia uniform, girls draped over his arms, smiling at Steve over his shoulder as they watched Howard Stark unveil his flying automobile. Steve had been...so small, then, so nervous so uncertain, but Bucky had turned back around and smiled a private smile at the small hand that clutched at the back of his jacket and held fast. _And after that...after that...then what? _His memory is horrendously spotty, and the time between then and now seems to have just passed in a breath, in a whisper, jagged spots of mind numbing pain filling in the spaces in between.

He turns to walk into the bathroom _how did I know it was the left door? I've been here before _and turns on the faucet, setting the clothes on the closed toilet lid, and bending over the sink to brush his teeth, lather shaving cream onto his cheeks. The razor is slippery smooth in his hand, the blade cold and pristine against his face, and he tilts his face to the left and right, dragging the razor through swathes of airy cream and leaving the skin slightly stinging, smooth.

_'Let me watch you shave!' Steve shouts, barging into the bathroom all scrawny and small, even at nineteen. _

_'Jesus,' he exclaims, jumping and nicking himself in the process. 'It's not like you're going to be growing a beard at your rate, shrimp.'_

_'Yeah, well,' Steve mutters, seating himself on the counter, his legs swinging back and forth, 'for when I do.'_

Bucky shakes his head to clear his thoughts, winces as the razor cuts into his neck. The cut burns, stinging as the shaving cream works into the wound, blood swirling pink down the sink drain. He examines it in the mirror, his eyes slowly tracing his features and wondering what Steve sees in them. It's not much to look at: gaunt, angular face, the eyes dark and angry, ringed with black circles, thin lips pressed together tightly for fear of saying the wrong thing, messy dark hair that doesn't take away anything from the sharpness of his cheekbones.

He sighs, leans over the sink to wash away the last remnants of shaving cream, and tries not to dwell on the fact that Steve didn't answer his question.

* * *

I've spent hours watching him sleep and trying to ignore the way his metal fingers clamp into my ribs, his face pressed into the pillow like he wants it to swallow him up. I've watched the dark blue tint of night fade into the soft pinks and golds of morning, watched the shadows trace their way across the planes of his face, watched as he had a nightmare somewhere around 5 AM, struggling and shaking in the blankets, pleading, begging with some unseen person not to hurt him anymore.

I wish he would tell me who. I wish he could remember who. I wish he could remember me.

It's been like this ever since I saw him in this millennium. He shows up, we're maybe able to have some semblance of a relationship for a few days, a few weeks, a few months, before he suddenly disappears again, drawn to some other place where I cannot follow, and then he comes back and it's like it never happened except for a few disjointed memories that don't really make sense out of context. It's like we're making a scrapbook of our lives together, but he keeps shaking out the photographs.

I know it's not his fault, but that doesn't make me any less frustrated about the whole thing.

Natasha says that it's something that he keeps coming back, and I guess she ought to know, being that she and Bucky went out a few years or so ago. She told me that one morning she woke up and all of a sudden he was just gone - the clothes in her dresser, his shoes, his keys and wallet, all gone, like he'd never been there, that there hadn't been anything to prove his existence except the soft musky smell on his pillow.

I still don't think it's fair.

I wriggle out of his death grip at somewhere around 7:30, and he mutters something unintelligible into the sheets and grabs at my pillow, tucking it close against his chest. It makes my heart hurt as I go into the kitchen and crack eggs into a bowl for French toast.

_'I love this,' Bucky mutters through a full mouth, spraying crumbs all over his sergeant's uniform, making me laugh, 'but let me tell you, I cannot recommend the French as highly as I do their toast.'_

"Hey, sleepyhead, it's way past morning, time to get up!" I say at 9:00, when I've gone through three whole cartons of eggs and have probably made enough French toast to send even JARVIS into cardiac arrest. I sit down beside him on the bed, leaning over to brush a stray strand of black hair out of his eyes, smiling slightly at the way he leans in to my touch. I repeat my summons, digging an elbow into his ribs just for good measure and remembering to stay clear of the trajectory of his metal arm. As expected, he smacks at me blindly, sight still foggy with sleep, before sitting up and scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"You sleep like the dead, you know that?" I ask him, smiling. "Although I guess I can't really fault you, Tony says I've been asleep for like seventy years or something like that. So I'm practically geriatric." I'm fully aware that I'm babbling, the way I get when I'm nervous, but for whatever reason, I can't seem to stop.

When Bucky doesn't reply, his dark eyes darting around the room as though looking for the closest escape route (hint: it would be through the windows to the far side of the room, though I can't say he'd survive the seventy-story drop, and I can't say I wouldn't just as soon jump out after him), I sigh and heave myself off the bed, going over to the dresser to find an acceptable change of clothes he might be able to wear. I rifle through T-shirts and V-necks, wondering what he'd like, before the sheets begin to rustle frantically behind me. I pull out the closest shirt and pair of jeans, and turn around, fully expecting Bucky to be making a break for the windows.

He's struggling in the blankets, and I want to laugh, but the panicked look in his eye reminds me of a trapped lion cub I saw at the zoo recently. He'd climbed up to the top of a rock pile, and couldn't seem to find the way back down. He looked terrified, and had buried his head under his paws and had whimpered until some zoo workers went up to help him. Bucky's eyes have the exact same expression, and I set the clothes down on the edge of the bed, reaching out and wrapping my arms around his waist.

"You okay?" I ask him, gently untangling him from the blankets. "I didn't like them the first time, either. But Tony's like a multibillionaire or something, and he said it was shameful to just be sleeping on cotton sheets all the time. Made him feel like he couldn't provide for us or anything, even though the entire tower's basically his," I tell him, trying to make conversation, trying to fill the air with noise that isn't his labored breathing and the clot of sadness that's clogging my throat.

He looks up, meets my eye, and I match him breath for breath as my thumb strokes gently, soothingly, along the base of his spine, slowly slowly slowly, and for just a few moments I can pretend that this is exactly what it looks like.

"Speaking of Tony, he wants to look at your arm," I say after a few moments, when it's clear Bucky isn't going to say anything. I wonder if he still likes being kissed at that one point under his jaw, if the skin there is still just as sensitive. "I mean, if that's okay with you, it IS your arm after all."

My eyes slowly drift over to the join of metal and skin at Bucky's shoulder, where his sunkissed flesh spills into unforgiving grey planes of steel, cruel curves of muscle that threw a punch at me the very first time I saw him in this century. My stare travels slowly down his arm, into the curve of his palm, remembering the way the metal of his fingers warmed up to my skin after just a few moments, how comfortable and smooth it felt in my own hand. I wonder if he remembers.

"Well," I say after a few moments, giving him the pile of clothes, "I guess you've always been a bit taller than me, but these should still fit. I think. Maybe if they don't, we can go shopping later..." My voice trails off as I begin to imagine hangers full of the dark blue and grey clothes Bucky's always favoured, hanging in my closet and gathering dusk, the shoulders just a bit too broad, the chest just a bit too wide, waiting for an owner who might not come back to wear them.

I shake my head slightly to brush away the image, turn back to Bucky with a smile that is sad and entirely unnatural; I can feel it splitting my heart straight in two. "And maybe you'll want to shave," I say, hoping that he doesn't notice the break in my voice, "I don't know if you want to keep...this," I murmur, patting my cheeks to indicate the five o'clock shadow that dusts his jaw with darkness. "I mean, you wear that mask all the time, so maybe it doesn't matter -"

"Are you scared of me?" he asks, staring at me intensely, piercing.

I open my mouth, waiting for the denial that is resting right at the tip of my tongue to come spilling out, but for the first time, I can't seem to make any sound. Bucky stares at me a few more moments, and maybe it's just the sun in my eyes, but I swear I can see pain and anguish and maybe the slightest hint of disbelief hidden in the dark shadows of his eyes.

With a slight sigh, he turns away, slipping into the bathroom and closing the door gently behind him. A few moments later, I hear the faucet start to run, the scrubbing sound of someone brushing his teeth, the slight pop of the tube of shaving cream opening.

_'Let me watch you shave!' I shout, all of nineteen, my limbs still long and gawky and stringy as I barge into the bathroom._

_'Jesus!' he exclaims, jumping and nicking himself with the blade in the process. I want to apologise but I can't seem to drag my eyes away from the small trickle of blood creeping down the strong line of his jaw. 'It's not like you're going to be growing a beard at your rate, shrimp,' he mutters, turning away from me and looking into the mirror to examine the damage.  
_

_'Yeah, well,' I say after I regain my voice, jumping onto the counter by the sink and patting my perfectly smooth cheeks, watching him lift the blade once again and wishing I could be the one to frame his face with my hands, 'for when I do.'  
_

_He laughs, a sound deep in his chest, but he doesn't kick me out.  
_

And then there's a muttered curse from behind the door - perhaps he's cut himself again, Bucky's never had the most steady hand - and I press my forehead against the white wood of the door, wrapping arms tight around myself so that it doesn't hurt quite so much as I mouth his name to myself over and over again.

_James Buchanan Barnes, James Buchanan Barnes, Bucky, the Winter Soldier, James Buchanan Barnes, my boyfriend Bucky _

The faucet turns on again, and before I know it, my hand is reaching out to twist the knob, to push open the door. Bucky looks up at me in the mirror, surprised, spots of shaving cream still clinging to his cheek, and a shallow cut on his neck trickling pink into the water.

"No," I say, wrapping my arms around him, a hand resting above his heart, which I can feel pulsing away in perfect rhythm. "No, I'm not," I whisper into the hollow between his shoulder blades, and after a moment, I feel metal gently wrapping around my fingers, and I fervently pray to myself that I am telling the truth.


	3. And Stronger Than You Seem

After breakfast, Steve, not meeting Bucky's eye, took him downstairs to the lab where Bruce and Tony were waiting, medical instruments at the ready. Bucky looked at them in apprehension and shied at the door, his fingers tightening around the door jamb as his eyes darted around the lab, taking in the shiny steel instruments. Steve swore that he could feel the tension colouring the air, and was mentally bracing himself to prepare to rip Bucky away from the door.

"Steve," Bucky hissed under his breath, his eyes fixated on Tony and Bruce, who were all decked out in scrubs and surgical gear, arms scrubbed up to the elbows and mouths covered with peppermint green masks. "I can't do this. I really can't."

Steve found his eyes drawn to the death grip Bucky had on the doorjamb. His metal left hand was actually digging through the plaster, and Steve absentmindedly wondered if Bucky realised he was doing that. The knuckles on his other hand were clenched white around the wall, and Steve could almost hear Bucky grinding his teeth through his jaw. Sweat stood out on Bucky's forehead and he was staring at Tony and Bruce with haunted eyes, shaking his head almost imperceptibly, his lips pressed white together as if he was keeping the words from leaking out the corners of his mouth.

"It's okay," Steve murmured soothingly, reaching out and patting Bucky's shoulder. He could feel the tension in the muscles underneath his fingers, a live wire ready to snap at the slightest provocation. "It'll be okay. They're friends, you've met them before, they just have to wear those things because of, because of contamination or something like that."

Bucky looks at Steve out of the corner of his eye, his dark eyes inscrutable.

"I promise you they won't hurt you. I swear they won't. And I'll be right here beside you the entire time, okay? I promise." Steve reached down, wrenched Bucky's hand off the door frame (there were indents from his metal fingers that Steve wasn't sure could ever be repaired), and pressed his lips to the cold metal, unsure if Bucky could even feel it and wondering what he was thinking if he did. Bucky's flesh hand was still clinging desperately to the doorframe, but with some coaxing, Steve gently tugged Bucky's arm, encouraging him to let go of the frame, and watched with knit eyebrows as Bucky's flesh hand instantly clapped itself over his eyes so he wouldn't have to see as Steve led him step-by-step across the white and black checkered laboratory floor, making shushing, soothing noises the entire way.

Bucky kept his eyes firmly clamped shut even after Steve had manoeuvred him onto the examination table. The scent of fear was heavy in the back of his throat; it tasted like sweet copper and dust, and Bucky swallowed hard, biting down on the inside of his cheek to stop himself from screaming. He clutched at Steve's fingers tightly, grabbing for anything that felt like hope, and felt only vaguely apologetic at Steve's responding hiss of pain.

"Okay, Bucky, we're just going to put you under, alright? Maybe we can see why you've been forgetting all these things," a voice came from above him, and he knew it wasn't the Surgeon, knew that this was a completely different thing, that anesthesia was a luxury he hadn't been afforded before, but he couldn't stop himself.

"Don't make me go back into the dark," he begged Steve, cracking open his eyes and finding Steve's gaze above him and slightly to the right, just as promised. "Don't let them hurt me."

Steve's grip tightened on his fingers as a mask was fitted over Bucky's nose and mouth. "I won't," he said firmly, and clutched tightly as Bucky's fingers slowly went limp and his dark eyes rolled back, fluttering closed after a few moments.

Tony and Bruce moved around gently, almost gracefully, and Steve watched them almost through a fog as they carefully detached Bucky's metal arm and set it on a separate table for examination purposes. The seam looked raw and Steve's shoulder ached just looking at it.

"We were thinking of doing an MRI," Tony says over his shoulder to Steve, who is only half listening and is instead tracing the furrow between Bucky's eyebrows with his gaze. "Brain function. To see if there's damage or trauma, you know. And we can probably throw in a full-body scan, just to make sure he's in top shape. We own the MRI machine anyway, so it's not like we're running the risk of incurring state medical fees. That okay with you?"

Steve looked at the prone form in front of him, wondering what they'd find in the scans. If they could find the memories that Bucky admitted to not being able to remember. If they would find big, black gaping spots where the memories were supposed to be, gone, irretrievable.

Steve wasn't sure which one he'd prefer.

"I can't watch this," he said after a few moments, biting at his lip. "I can't."

Tony walked over, placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "You don't have to if you don't want," he said after a few quiet moments. "You don't have to do any of this, we could just wake him up and that would be it."

Steve worried his lip between his teeth, grasping Bucky's limp fingers and trying to find an answer.

"I just want him to stay with me," he murmured. "I don't want him to leave again. Losing him once was enough."

"Maybe you won't have to lose him again," Bruce murmurs from the side, where he is looking through Bucky's metal arm and the cogs and springs and pieces within. "But you won't know unless you try."

Steve looked down at the white and black checkered floor, staring until his gaze burned tears into his eyes.

"Okay," he whispered, furiously scrubbing away at his eyes with the heel of one hand. "Okay."

* * *

"Don't make me go back into the dark," he begged me, clutching at my hand like a saving grace, like a last prayer. "Don't let them hurt me."

"I won't," I promised him, clutching tightly at his hand and watching as he halfheartedly struggled against the anesthesia mask being placed over his mouth and nose, watching as his dark eyes rolled back and his hand slowly went limp in mine. The heart and oxygen monitors were beeping along at a normal clip, but it was so hard to believe that he wasn't dead, lying all still and stationary like that.

I kept trying to reassure myself that this was all for his own good, but maybe somewhere deep in my heart I know this is just a completely selfish request. I can't handle losing him twice. Even now, though I know it was ages ago, I keep picturing his face as he fell through the air, his hand stretched up towards me, a silent plea for salvation that I couldn't give. Even though I look across at him now and see the angular lines and planes of an adult face that's borne too much sadness, I can still make myself see the hopefulness and cheer that once turned up the corners of his mouth and smoothed the furrow between his eyebrows.

His metal arm lies on a table nearby, Tony fiddling with it with a magnifying glass and the tiniest pair of tweezers I've ever seen, and he's muttering into a little recorder as he examines its contents. Bruce, meanwhile, is fussing over Bucky, something about just checking to see if there are any physical abnormalities he can detect, leaning over his chest and pressing the rubber cup of a stethoscope to his skin, frowning.

"Tony," he calls over his shoulder. "You ought to come and listen to this."

Tony abandons the arm, walking briskly over and taking the stethoscope from Bruce. He listens a few moments, makes a face. "What is that?" he mutters. "He sounds like a goddamned clock. Or a bomb."

My heart leaps into my throat, and I squeeze Bucky's fingers tightly inadvertently.

Tony turns to me, his eyes apologetic. "We're going to have to see what it is," he says after a moment. "We're going to have to...you know, cut him open. Well, Bruce will do that; I'm not exactly trained in invasive surgery, kind of skipped those courses in college. Ideally, we could try to scan it, X-rays or something, but with weapons technology these days, radiation might be able to trigger it, if it does turn out to be a bomb. And then, well, I'm pretty sure super soldier serum won't bring him back from that."

I don't remember nodding; I don't remember putting on the surgical cap and mask and gown; I don't remember the process through which Bruce opened up Bucky's chest. I do remember the rusty brown colour of the solution they put on his chest before cutting, the liquid spreading across the flesh like a birthmark, the exact same shade as the one he has on his lower back in the shape of a marshmallow; I do remember their collective gasps of breath as they peered into the cavity of his chest, their gloves stained bloody; I do remember them waving me over, telling me to come and have a look, and the squeak of my chair as I pushed it back and went over.

"Look at this," Tony prompts me, and I sniff back my tears and lean over to look as well.

Inside, amongst all the red and crimson and scarlet, something silver, pulsing, mechanical, clicking away in perfect rhythm, never faltering, never missing a beat. And I'm not a doctor, but I'm fairly sure hearts are all red and ropey, and Bruce only confirms my suspicions a few moments later.

"Well, it isn't a bomb, I'm fairly sure," he says, looking down into the cavity. "That's his heart."

I return to my seat, wrap my fingers around Bucky's again, and wonder if this is why he's never told me he loves me, because he can't. Because he doesn't know how to. Because he just doesn't feel that way.

I lied. I do remember one other thing.

I remember looking over at Bucky's face and learning that you do not have to be awake to cry.

* * *

He comes back to me a few hours later, the scar on his chest already healing, and he wakes up groggy and confused and complaining about his head hurting.

The scans that Tony and Bruce had ended up doing hadn't revealed anything conclusive, they'd told me. But that didn't mean there wasn't trauma, Tony had pointed out. It could just mean that there was, but that it was healing too fast for them to see. Super soldier serum, enhanced regenerative effects, etc etc. But at the present moment, his mind appeared perfectly intact and healthy.

They threw words like "aphasia," and "dysfunctional," at me, said that Bucky just might not be able to express himself through language, that he might forget words on occasion. But I wasn't listening, or maybe I didn't want to listen.

"How you doing?" I ask him, squeezing his fingers lightly and smiling as he squeezes back weakly.

"Head hurts," he muttered.

A few moments of silence, during which I just stroke along the back of his hand with my thumb.

"I'm very proud of you," I tell him, smiling past the tears that threaten to clog my throat as I catch sight of that hideous, ugly scar on his chest, rapidly fading away before my very eyes. "They say you're strong as a horse. You'll live for a long time yet."

He scoffs. "I don't feel like it," he says, and my heart skips a beat. Is that an "I don't feel like it" to the strong comment, or an "I don't feel like it" to living for a long time? "I feel like I got hit by one of those really big cars, you know the ones that carry cows from one place to another."

I smile. "You mean a truck?"

"Yeah," he nods. "That."

I wait a few moments to see if he has anything else to say, but he is quiet and staring at the metal hand that lies placid on the thin white sheet that drapes over his lower body. I make to stand up.

"I'm going to get something to drink," I tell him. "Do you want anything?"

He shakes his head, still fascinated by his metal fingers.

At the door, he clears his throat and I turn, attention drawn to him as it always is.

"I did it because I..." he struggles for a moment, biting at his lips as I wait patiently. "Because I like you," he says finally, and my heart sinks. I suppose it's a start, but it hurts nonetheless. It isn't exactly what I wanted to hear.

"No," he says, his voice desperate as I turn again to leave. "You don't understand. I mean, like, really really really like you."

I turn back to face him. He's holding out his hands, supplicating, and I know what it's like to be abandoned, and I can't force myself to be the abandoner. That's just not a role Steve Rogers, or Captain America, is supposed to fill.

My footsteps seem like gunshots in the room as I walk back towards him, seat myself in the chair by his right side again and take his hands in mine. His metal fingers are cool to the touch.

"Do you mean," I say cautiously, staring at some point on his forehead so it could appear that I'm looking into his eyes, "that you love me?" My voice almost breaks on the last word.

I look up to find him smiling a huge smile of relief.

"Yeah," he says, and for an instant it's 1940s Bucky all over again. "That."


	4. And Smarter Than You Think

"These are pretty good," Bucky told Steve one day after rifling through a pile of Steve's sketches. "You did always want to go to art school. Did you ever get the chance to go take some classes?" he asked, stretching out over the sofa, reaching out towards Steve, and it's so 1940s that Steve has to take a breath before he can respond.

"I can't believe you remember that," Steve muttered after a moment, passing a hand over his eyes. He'd been looking more and more tired recently, although Bucky couldn't imagine why. They went to bed at around the same time every night, and certainly Steve's bed in the Tower was far more comfortable than any Bucky had ever had the privilege to sleep in. If Bucky was being honest with himself, it was almost too comfortable, and sometimes he found himself waking up in the middle of the night, carefully untangling Steve's arm, heavy with sleep, from around his shoulders, and lying down on the floor, where he'd close his eyes and fall asleep almost immediately. He and Steve never talked about it, but he always woke up with a pillow wedged under his head, a blanket lying tangled over him, and a warm hollow in his half of the bed shaped like Steve.

"No, I didn't," Steve answered, clearing his throat. "I've been meaning to, God knows Tony's got enough money to afford to pack me away to art school, but it just seems that, you know, there's bigger, more important things besides learning how to manipulate figure-ground relationships and stuff. And I don't think it would be very fair for the teachers if they had to postpone a final because Captain America had some other things to do."

A sharp twinge of pain ran through Bucky's mind, and he groaned, dropping his head into his hands. Steve was by his side in an instant, a solid, comforting weight on the sofa cushion next to him, a hand, warm, clasping at his shoulder and rubbing in soft, soothing circles. Images flashed through his mind, imprinted on the backs of his eyelids, words ringing in his ears, you know how to make it stop, Mr. Barnes, I know you do, and his heart was racing in his chest, and Bucky could have sworn it was beating a tattoo on the inside of his ribcage, rhythmic and relentless, and he reached up to grasp at Steve's - Steve's not Captain America's - fingers, squeezing tightly until the pain began to pulse away, leaking out the corners of his eyes, salty and bitter. Steve's thumb came up to brush at his cheek, and he leaned into the touch, trying to ignore the way a chill had worked its way up his spine.

"You okay?" Steve asked quietly, and Bucky nodded hesitantly, his eyes drifting over a few scattered sketches that had slipped from his hands. There was one of him, really quite well done, he thought to himself, although it wasn't particularly realistic; he couldn't possibly look so peaceful, he always felt like there were a million thoughts running through his head at once and the world was going too fast for him. There was one of Natasha, cherry red curls fanning out from her face like a fiery halo, and Bucky smiled fondly at her image, remembering icy winters in Moscow cuddled up in bear skins by a fire, drinking vodka and letting her hair spread out all across his chest as she curled up into him. He wondered absentmindedly if Natasha had told Steve about Russia. Wondered if it mattered.

"Nat told me about it," Steve said, almost like reading his mind. "The two of you in Russia." There was a slight pause, and Bucky looked up to find Steve frowning, his lips pinched together, as though rolling his next sentence around his mouth and not liking the taste of it.

Before he could, Bucky hastened to fill the silence. "Are you...angry about that?" he asked after a moment, and Steve's look of consternation turned to confusion.

"Angry?" he asked, as though he'd thought nothing of the sort. Perhaps he hadn't. "Not really. Natasha's a lovely lady, although I can't say that I'm too pleased with knowing I was alive and you were alive at that time and you didn't come looking for me."

Bucky rolled his eyes, elbowed Steve in the ribs, and smiled hesitantly at him. "Well, you mention Captain America" - the name tastes bitter and acidic in his mouth, and he spits it out as quickly as possible - "in Russia, and you see how you turn out."

Steve smiled absentmindedly, and ruffled fingers through Bucky's dark hair.

"I was already forgetting things then, too," Bucky muttered, leaning back into Steve. "Sometimes I'd come home and find Natasha's coat hanging up by the door and I'd just about go ballistic because I thought that maybe there was an intruder in the place, that since it wasn't my coat, it definitely had to be a bad guy's, because I lived alone...and then she'd come out, her hair wrapped in a towel, and she'd sit down with me and pull out a short list, kind of like the ones you write for the grocery store, and go over them with me. Your name is James Buchanan Barnes, you are my boyfriend, my name is Natasha Romanov, we work together, that sort of thing." From this angle, when he looked up, he couldn't see Steve's expression.

When Steve still didn't say anything, Bucky pressed his head back into the hollow of Steve's throat. "I don't mean it, you know," he said, reaching up blindly and feeling around Steve's face with his flesh hand. Steve's skin was warm to the touch, and Bucky pulled back his fingers, glistening and tasting of salt.

He let his hand drop to his side, and decided not to mention it.

* * *

He asked me the other day if maybe Tony and Bruce could implant some sort of GPS tracker under his skin or something, they apparently had microchips put in cats and dogs and all sorts of other pets these days to find where they were if they ever went missing. Yes, cats and dogs and animals, I wanted to shout at him. Is that what you are? I managed to refrain.

Even though the idea itself isn't particularly bad, I can't bear the thought of any more artificial things being sewn underneath his skin, taking up the room where his feelings and memories and words ought to be. The scars he had on his chest from before have already all but faded, and are just the faintest pink lines running along his skin. He asked what they were, and I didn't have the heart to tell him. Didn't have the heart to tell him. I've clearly gotten onto the bad puns stage of grief, wherever that happens to be. Denial? Anger? Probably anger. I can't imagine what kind of monster could possibly do this.

Well, in my experience with the world, I think I can honestly say that the only monsters this world has are people. We kill and lie and steal and then wonder why the world is devolving into such a horrendous place.

But Bucky's not...that. Granted, he's done his fair share of lying and stealing, and true, he did try to kill me the first time he saw me in this era, but he's not the same as the people you see on the television, who beat their partners and their children and keep people locked up in the basement for years on end. But Buck's not like that. He's not a monster, despite his metal arm, despite the history he can't seem to remember, despite the way he flinches whenever the words "Captain America" are mentioned.

I've noticed he has this weird quirk where he gets up in the middle of the night and goes over to the windows in my room, looks out as if contemplating whether jumping would kill him. He always stands there for about an hour before going back to the side of the bed and lying down on the floor. At this point, I roll over into his side, whether to feel closer to him, or just to stare at his sleeping outline and wonder what he's dreaming about for hours on end, or just to be near enough to stuff a pillow under his head and toss an extra blanket over him if he looks like he gets cold in the middle of the night. I'm not sure he does, he's never complained about it, and he supposedly did spend a few years in Russia, so perhaps he's just used to it. I don't want to think about him locked up in somebody's basement, slowly getting acclimated to the freezing temperatures and huddling in the corner in shredded clothes, trying to keep warm.

Speaking of Russia. I feel extremely conflicted on that subject. Yes, I'm irritated that Bucky and I were awake and conscious for some time simultaneously during this century, and I didn't know. Yes, I'm a bit annoyed that he and Natasha have some history together, history that I'll never be privy to, but then I remember that I've got all of Bucky's childhood and adolescence in the palm of my hand, and this never fails to make me feel a little better, even though Bucky admits that he himself is a bit shaky on the details, but I suppose six or seven decades will do that to a person. That, and whatever he goes through whenever he leaves. On the other hand, I'm glad that he had somebody I've come to trust taking care of him while he was there and making sure he didn't freeze to death or drink himself into a coma or the like.

Natasha once told me that one morning she woke up, and Bucky had just disappeared, no shoes, no keys, no coat, no trace of himself left behind. I suppose I should be thanking my lucky stars that Bucky hasn't upped and packed the contents of his wardrobe here (admittedly, there's not much) and run away. But it's almost worse, somehow, seeing his shirts hanging in the closet by mine, day after day when I open it to get dressed, and hoping beyond hope that today might be the day he comes back, the hope slowly growing bitter and acrid in the back of my throat as the day passes and I lie down to sleep and try to think of what tomorrow might bring.

He tells me today that I draw well, and I store the compliment away deep in my mind for a time when he will not be here, for a time when he will not remember ever saying it, and think bitterly to myself that ordinary people don't have to do this. He traces the contours of Natasha's face almost reverently, and I wonder if he's ever looked at me the same way and I just haven't been watching him back to see it.

"Nat told me about it," I told him, watching his fingers smudge one of Natasha's curls. "The two of you in Russia." I pause for a moment, willing the jealous questions to crawl back down into my throat. Do you still love her? Were you like this then? Anybody can say 'I love you,' but even a computer can say those words and they won't mean anything because it comes from a metal place, so how can I know you're telling the truth?

"Are you...angry about that?" he asks me, looking hopefully up at me, and I wonder if the hope burns bitter in the back of his throat also.

"Angry? Not really," I lie. There I go, lying, just like a monster. Words make hypocrites of us all.

He assures me that he was like this, forgetful and dizzy, even then, back in Russia. He hastens to fill the silence with his thoughts, and I don't even notice I'm crying until he reaches up with his flesh hand and presses it against my cheek, fingertips just barely grazing against the skin before pulling away again.

Perhaps I should let him go through with the tracker idea. I don't know how much more of this I can take.


End file.
